Indeed it is known that in many branches of industry (such as the electronics industry, or even the foodstuffs or alternatively the pharmaceutical industry), objects need to be stored more or less temporarily in a controlled atmosphere (for example dry air or alternatively an atmosphere of nitrogen containing only a given limited content of residual oxygen or of residual water vapor) while they are awaiting use or in the process of being manufactured. Thus, taking the electronics industry as an example, means are commonly found for storing, under nitrogen or alternatively under dry air, electronics components that are in the process of being manufactured, for example for storing printed circuits before they are assembled or alternatively for storing bare chips before these are assembled on electronic boards.
Also to be found within this industry are means for storing under dry air or under nitrogen electronic components that can be qualified as obsolete or of strategic importance, that the user cannot be certain of being able to procure in the years to come and of which he quite simply creates his own long-term stock.
It will be appreciated that such storage operations are necessary in order to avoid any interaction between the component and the ambient air, the key risks being associated with the components absorbing moisture from the ambient air, oxidation of the metallic parts of the components or of printed circuit tracks for example, absorption of moisture by plastic encapsulation cases or alternatively reaction with certain contaminating particles in the ambient air (halogenated compounds, etc.).
Further, it is known that one of the technical problems presented by such storage spaces is that these devices are used for short durations, the components being introduced into or removed from the storage member as and when the user site requires them, which means that the storage modules are therefore opened and closed extremely often, sometimes several times per hour.
Although numerous devices of this type are currently available on the market, and even though there is an abundancy of literature relating to these devices (a study may notably be made of documents FR-2 877 641, EP-1 333 469, FR-2 803 647 or alternatively EP-1 102 713), the applicant company has set itself the task of proposing, through the present invention, a novel device that offers the following advantages and improvements:                of simplifying existing systems in order to reduce the costs thereof;        of allowing modularity (use of a single storage module or of several modules can be superposed, while at the same time offering the user the ability to use it as mobile equipment (for transporting the articles from a point A to a point B):        of improving performance in relation to the existing systems;        of maintaining an irreproachable level of safety under these conditions of simplicity and low cost.        